Chapter Text
Mai watched Momo from her position at the top of the grassy knoll. Her girlfriend sat at the far end of the beach, toes in the sand, the sea slowly repossessing her sun-kissed skin as the waves pushed and pulled.
“Momo!” Mai called out. No response.
She sighed from her spot in the warm island sun, stepping over the hill and sliding down the steep sandy decline, stumbling against the grain until she landed on her ass beside the other girl.
Momo blinked, eyes following Mai’s baggy jeans up to her bare stomach and- um- generous bikini top to the sharp gold eyes that threatened to read her mind. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Mai said, a little smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. Just as she had warned- she had read Momo’s mind. “I was calling your name, you know.”
“You were? Shit. I’m sorry.” Momo started to sit up. “Did you-”
“He didn’t even look,” Mai said, rolling her eyes. She dug around in her front pocket before procuring a clear glass bottle.
Boy pants, Momo thought. That’s why they never need a purse.
“It took me like, three tries to make that fake. I didn’t know if I would get that last nosebleed to stop.”
“I know, babe. I’m sorry he didn’t look at your fake. It looked really good.”
“I didn’t know you could get so fucked up off of twenty dollars.” Mai mused, already twisting off the cheap aluminum cap.
“You can’t have glass on the beach, dummy.”
Mai rolled her eyes. “You’re fine with underage drinking, but glass on the beach is where you draw the line?”
To illustrate her point, Momo toed a long line in the sand.
They walked up the wharf following a little path lined with tall grass up to the little firepath where Momo always parked the Collins’ ancient Wrangler. Not today, though- the two weren’t quite stupid enough to catch a DUI before they were old enough to drink in the first place.
The sun was setting on their secret little oceanside hideaway. Mai was still quiet, the way her thumb rubbed against Momo’s hand faster and faster exposing her thoughts.
“Stop thinking so loud.”
Mai made a little noise of indignation. “What am I thinking about, then?”
“You’re stressed.”
She scoffed. “Am not.”
“Is it about going back?” Momo asked, knowing how stubborn Mai would be if you allowed her the chance to argue.
Mai looked away, taking a sip from the bottle, face twisting in disgust as she choked it down.
“Is it?” Momo said, this time a little quieter. “It’s not for another two weeks. ”
“It’s not about going back,” Mai said, matching her tone. She passed Momo the bottle, leaning back on her palms, legs dangling over the edge of the cliff. “It’s about going back without you.”
Momo’s stomach twisted, which was especially ill-timed with the vodka hitting her stomach. She coughed. “Stay here.”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m serious.” Momo sat up, and the bottle exchanged hands once again. “I mean, you might have to do high school in Japan, whatever, but you could come back right after and be a sorcerer like me. Or-” Momo beamed as though a lightbulb had appeared over her head- “Or you could go to college!”
“Yeah, I’m sure my family would totally pay for that.” Mai rolled her eyes.
“You could apply for a scholarship.”
“Nuh-uh. I’d never get a scholarship to go to school in Hawaii. Not after Pearl Harbor.” Mai shook her head. “That’s right. I pay attention in class. I know about that stuff.”
You don’t even go to class half the time, Momo kept to herself. “That was like, a hundred years ago, babe. They don’t hate Japanese people like that anymore.” She paused, considering the density of such a statement, how many theys there really were. “Well, I mean, it’s a little complicated, but-”
“See? And like, what would I even study, anyway?”
“Why are you doing this?” Momo said, finally, eyes locked on Mai, hands on either side of her face. “Why are you fighting me?”
Mai was quiet.
“You don’t want to be a sorcerer.” Momo continued, her thumbs rubbing little circles against Mai’s sunkissed cheeks. “You don’t even want to be in Japan. You could get away, away from your family, from fighting curses, from all the bullshit sorcery stuff if you really wanted to.”
Mai’s gaze didn’t falter. “I know better than to get my hopes up.”
“But that’s stupid!” Momo argued, and Mai recoiled in surprise. “Sorry. It is stupid, though. It’s stupid that you won’t let yourself dream of anything, Mai, because what kind of life is that?” She wasn’t sure what she was looking for in the girl’s expression, but she looked anyway. ”What do you want, Mai?”
Mai hesitated, her own eyes locked on Momo’s, her hand going to Momo’s chin. “Let me show you.”
Her gaze lingered on the clumps of mascara dried on Mai’s lashes, then drifted to her chewed bottom lip. Their mouths met, tongue against tongue, as Mai’s hands slipped beneath Momo’s shirt, fingertips tracing the raised scars along her ribcage. As the sun dipped closer to the sea, the space between their bodies disappeared, one sinking lower while the other climbed higher, and higher, and higher.
The sun had long dipped below the horizon when Momo slipped her bikini top back on. Mai leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek as Momo tugged her pants up over her long legs.
"You have some very convincing tactics, lady," she teased with a playful smirk.
“Hey, there’s plenty more where that came from,” Momo smirked, doing her best to fix her hair in her phone camera. “How do I look?”
“You’re glowing.”
“So I don’t look like I just had sex on a beach?”
“That’s not what I said.”
The walk home should have been short, but somehow they always found a way to stretch it out. They balanced along the sidewalk curb, taking turns playing songs from their phones at full volume and taking swigs from the little glass bottle of vodka as it slowly warmed between exchanges. They stopped once or twice to swap drunken kisses, or to take the kinds of stupid pictures only drunk teenagers take- Mai with the bottle to her lips, Momo holding two middle fingers to the camera- only stopping self-consciously when LED lights loomed from around the corner of the cul-de-sac.
“Thank you for this,” Mai said.
“I mean, you bought it.”
“I don’t just mean the drink,” Mai said as if Momo should have known better. “I mean…everything. All of this. Hawaii. The beach. Getting poke and boba every day for lunch. Sleeping in late together in a big ass bed-”
“It’s just a queen-”
“Watching sunsets over the ocean-”
“Baby, you were not watching the sunset.”
“Quit it! I’m trying to be sweet!” Mai protested, so Momo obeyed. “I’m just…I’m trying to say- thank you. This is really cool. I’m really happy your dad invited me home for your birthday. And I’m happy that he pays for everything, and he doesn’t act like I bother him at all-”
Because you’re not some guy that’s gonna make him a grandpa before he’s forty, Momo wanted to say, but she knew better.
“I guess I didn’t ever really…” She licked her top lip. “I haven’t had that before, you know? I haven’t really had anyone before, but my sister, and, you know…”
Momo watched her trail off. “I know.”
“I’ve never been good at thinking of the future,” Mai began carefully, “because I guess I never expected to have one.”
Soon enough the Collins’ stilted two-bedroom appeared over the horizon, a little orange glow illuminating the sunroom and the steps that led to it.
“Normal people are nice, you know. You were just born into a family of freaky assholes.”
Mai threw her head back and laughed at this- a big, stupid, vulnerable laugh that went on for too long and made Momo feel like the only girl in the entire world.
“Freaky assholes,” Mai agreed. “I hate them. I would die happy if I never had to see them again for as long as I live.”
What Momo would give to make that come true.
Mai passed the bottle to her girlfriend, who finished it off, swiping her mouth with the back of her hand and tossing it in one of the trash bins on the curb. The last thing she needed was proof of their evening activities. Mai knew this, too, being an experienced rule-breaker herself. A pack of gum emerged from one of her several oversized pockets.
“The porch light is on,” Mai noticed plainly, smacking her gum. “I bet your dad’s waiting with a breathalyzer.”
“He is not. He probably just forgot to turn it off when he got home from the gym.”
“Or maybe he’s out there cleaning his guns,” she said, somewhat hopefully.
Momo wanted to tell Mai to shut up, but the closer they came to the house, the clearer the scene behind the screen porch became.
Her heart jumped, Mai’s following not long after, considering the way she squeezed her hand.
“Is that-?”
“No way,” Momo said, off and sprinting. She wasn’t sure how someone could possess the ability to spur some kind of motivation to run deep within Momo, but here she was, tiny legs kicking like a whirlwind as she dashed forward.
Utahime was waiting, sitting in one of the little rattan chairs across from her dad. He was there, too; long out of his uniform and wearing one of his unstained shirts. Probably because of Utahime-sensei.
“Sensei!” Momo cried, skipping up the steps into the much taller woman’s arms for a tight embrace that was instantly returned.
“Momo, I’m so glad to see you, but-” Utahime looked up from their embrace. “Oh. There she is.”
“Sorry, sensei,” Mai called as she approached the driveway. “I’m not running for anyone on break.”
“Gotcha,” Utahime sighed, then smiled. “I’m glad you can relax a little, Mai.”
“Me too, sensei,” Mai said, and she fell into the embrace as though it were second nature. “But what are you doing here?”
Momo looked over at her monolingual father. He gave a little wave.
“How was the beach?”
Momo shrugged. “Sandy.”
“I’m just glad you go outside still. Some of these Marines your age don’t stop staring at their phones.”
"What? This one’s always glued to her phone," Utahime said, cocking an eyebrow. Her Japanese accent was so thick that Momo couldn’t help but smile, even under the weight of the chastising. "Or is that just during class?"
“Whoa, what is this, a parent-teacher conference?” Momo held her hands up defensively. “Sensei, I graduated two weeks ago. No offense or anything, but what are you doing here?”
“You may be surprised to learn, Momo, that I am not here for you.”
“Ouch.” Major Collins commented from his spot in the chair. Momo ignored him.
“Though I am happy to see you doing well.” Their teacher smiled so genuinely and sweetly it was hard not to melt under her gaze. “The sun has been good to you.”
Momo was blushing, so she looked away with a little scoff. “What kind of back-handed compliment is that?”
" Still mouthy.” Utahime retorted in Japanese. Her gaze switched to the other woman. “As for you, Mai, I have some news.”
“Oh?” Mai said, clearly trying to suppress the little tremble in her voice. News for a Zenin was rarely something to look forward to. Momo felt the panic creep in herself- she had been there for news enough times to know.
“Well,” She started, first looking to Momo’s dad, then back to Momo and Mai. “You, um, have the choice to return to Jujutsu Tech next month.”
Mai scoffed. “Yeah, it’s always been a choice. Fighting curses or doing my cousin’s laundry while he calls me fat.”
Utahime cringed, a unique sort of anger flashing for a second in her eye. A mutual hatred. She lowered her voice just a bit. “I mean you don’t have to go back to Japan, Mai.”
Mai was quiet, eyebrow propped, arms crossed over her chest defensively. “What?”
There was a lot that had happened. The Zenin Clan had a new head- Mai’s cousin, that kid with the spikey hair from Tokyo Tech.
Mai was quiet mostly, chewing the inside of her mouth and looking at the floor for most of the debrief. Maki would be finishing her education as a sorcerer, according to Utahime, who seemed to have talked to every single sorcerer in Japan before landing in Hawaii. “But no one is expecting the same of you, Mai.”
Momo was waiting for a comment or a jab, but none came. Mai just sat quietly, still looking down at a spot on the porch. “I see.”
“Megumi has formally relieved you of your clan duties,” Utahime said, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Momo pointed to her dad. “Does he know all of this?”
“He knows something related to the truth,” Iori-sensei said, whatever that meant.
Momo opened her mouth to say something, but instead, she choked on the sour spit and bile suddenly that crept across her tongue. Fuck, she couldn’t throw up here, not with her dad and her girlfriend and her sensei, not when she’d been drinking all night-
“Shit.” Momo said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait, Momo-”
“Momo!”
She hopped down the steps, around the stairway, out of sight of the porch, shaking, buckling over as vomit spilled out past her lips onto the sidewalk. Someone was still calling out for her from the porch, Mai, maybe-
“ Hah-”
It ripped from her again, burning her throat, tearing out of her mouth, over and over.
Momo couldn’t make it stop.
Over and over, heave after heave, vomit spilled from her into the vast emptiness surrounding her. She felt the way the acidic spit clung to her hair, her cheeks, down her chin. For a moment, she felt relief, a chance to take in a big breath, the hot humid heavy air that choked her, the hands keeping her hair back.
Then she was sick again, and she slipped, and though nothing surrounded her she knew she was falling.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, senpai,” A sweet voice- familiar, but not Mai- sighed from behind her, running one hand back over her forehead to wipe her sweat back into her hair. “I knew you were drinking, but I didn’t know it was like this… ”
Miwa…
What the fuck? Miwa? Did she come with Utahime?
Oh. Fuck.
The ground was spinning. Momo lost her balance, stumbling onto her knees, hands reaching out for something, anything, even if it was cold, even if it was porcelain-
She wasn’t in Hawaii. She wasn’t on the beach, the sun setting behind her as she kissed her girlfriend. Her teacher hadn’t come by to free her from the shackles of the jujutsu world.
The love of her young life was no more.
Momo was arched over the cold toilet in her dorm room at Kyoto Tech, drenched in the shadows of an unlit home, comforted by the sounds of her own sick hitting the toilet water, her nostrils stinging, eyes watering, the image of her bruised, bloodied, dead girlfriend flashing over and over, burned into her memory, branded with a hot iron on the inside of her eyelids.
No one would be coming to save her.
Mai Zenin was dead, and Kyoto wept.